Just Right
by stick-at-nought shady
Summary: In the cold, rainy arena, Rue meets up with Cato. The two ally, and something very unexpected happens. For Brooke :)


**Merry Christmas, everyone! But especially Brooke, [Silver Medals], the recipient of this oneshot, even though, Brooke, you've said you celebrate Hanukkah. :p Ruto and cookies for all!**

**Brooke, your prompts were 'rain, coexistence, "Maybe it was you, maybe it was me, but it sure felt right", and dancing on warfare grounds'. I tried my best to incorporate all of them :)**

**A little bit of changes... it's when Katniss, Peeta, Foxface, Thresh, and Cato are left, but in this one, Rue didn't die. Also, she was never Katniss's ally.**

* * *

She just couldn't stop shivering. Her thin body quaked, and her fingers trembled so much she could hardly put her spare pair of socks over her hands. She looked up at the sky. It was the hardest rain she'd ever seen, or been in.

_If I was in District Eleven,_ Rue thought, _I'd be sitting in my house with my family, drinking apple cider and singing. _

Rue was very glad it was raining, suddenly. If it wasn't, the entire nation of Panem would see her weeping. She curled up as small as she could make herself and sobbed into the cold, wet ground. Her small dark-skinned face was being painted darker with dirt, and her salty tears were drunk up by the thirsty ground. Rue wished she was back at home and she was warm and safer. Maybe wrapped in a pile of blankets...

The ground vibrated. Rue felt herself draw in a breath. She shrunk into the roots of the tree she lay by, knowing that someone was walking her way. She bit her chapped lip and tried to breathe quietly. The girl stared at the stormy sky. Looking up into the rain felt like she was flying through the clouds. Rue wished she was up in the clouds. Anywhere must be better than the arena.

Whoever was coming got closer, walking steadily. Without warning, a pair of long legs walked past her. She stiffened up and curled into the tree, closing her eyes. _Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me..._ she prayed. _Why didn't I go up the tree? As a matter of a fact, why am I by a tree? It's the middle of a thunderstorm! _But Rue knew why- she was simply too weary to climb.

The person stopped walking. Rue could feel it in the earth. She hoped that they weren't deciding to stop for the night and light a fire. Suddenly, something very cool and thin pressed against the back of Rue's neck. A sword. She couldn't help it- she whimpered.

"Don't kill me," she whispered, and she could've slapped herself for being so stupid. 'Don't kill me'? How childish was that?

"Rue?" asked a serious male voice. Rue opened her eyes and peeked up at the person.

There stood Cato- proud and strong. His dark hair was a mess of tangles all over his head, and his face bore the mark of a tracker jacker sting. The expression on his face didn't fit his features. It was an expression of shock, and something else that definitely didn't belong on his face. Could it be pity?

Cato pulled his sword away from Rue and hooked it in his belt quickly. "You're freezing," he said, stating the obvious. Rue couldn't help but flinching when Cato sat down beside her. He let out a long sigh, and his long fingers raked through his mop of hair.

"Get it over with," Rue said, her voice quivering as much as the rest of her.

"Get what over with?" asked Cato, looking at her with concern.

Rue sat up and felt tears forming in her eyes. "Killing me," she answered him. She wiped her runny nose with one sock-encased hand. Cato didn't say a word. He just sat under the canopy of the tree with her and stared at the Cornucopia. His blue eyes were unrelentlessly searching the arena for tributes. "Well?" Rue finally said after five minutes of staring. She was too nervous to run. She was afraid that if she tried, Cato would kill her.

"That wasn't my plan," Cato said quietly, still staring out into the night.

"Then what is it?" Rue found the courage to say.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Cato said. At last, he turned and looked at Rue. "Well, it was my plan. To kill you, I mean. But I'm just... not sure," he admitted. "I've got this feeling in my gut that I shouldn't." His face was so old for an eighteen-year-old. He'd seen and done things grown men shouldn't, and it showed.

Rain poured down infinitely. _Are the Gamemakers trying to give us all pneumonia?_ Rue thought. She looked over at Cato. He was back to staring in the direction of the lake. His features were confused- sad, angry, and sympathetic.

Suddenly Cato stood. "I'm going," he said aloud. "You never saw me." With a troubled look on his face, he started to walk away. Then he stopped. "No," he said slowly. He turned back to Rue. "Come with me," he said.

Rue hesitated. Cato was asking for her as an ally? But he was strong, and a Career, and he was tough! He killed people without blinking an eye. Cato's left hand -the one not on his sword- was held out to help her up. But he was holding his sword! Didn't that mean he didn't trust her? Rue racked her brains. She had no idea what to do. Before she could decide, Cato yanked her to her feet and scooped her into his arms.

"You've got a fever," he said, his strong hand feeling her forehead.

"Then why is it so cold?" Rue asked him, struggling to get on her feet. Cato wouldn't let her go.

"You need sponsor gifts. That's the only thing that's going to get you well again," he said. He looked meaningfully at the sky. In less than a minute, a basket plonked onto the wet earth. Cato held up Rue with one muscular arm and picked it up. He quickly pulled out a bottle of pills. He looked closely at the label on it. Then he shook a single pill into Rue's open hand. "Here, take that."

Rue didn't. She held it with her hand closed around it. "I want to see that bottle." She didn't trust Cato fully. Was he trying to drug her? Cato raised an eyebrow, but handed her the pill bottle. The pills were identified as 'fever-breaking medication'. She popped the pill into her mouth and handed the bottle to Cato.

Just as Cato was setting Rue on her feet and tucking the pill bottle into his jacket pocket, another package thumped onto the ground. Cato picked it up again with a sigh. He opened it up and recoiled, shaking his head. He produced an amber-colored bottle full of alcohol. "She's twelve," Cato muttered under his breath. "She doesn't need to get drunk." Somehow, the protective gesture touched Rue. But before Cato put the bottle in his backpack, he took a small gulp of the beer.

For a while, they just walked. When Rue tried to stop, Cato told her, "You're going to get killed if you stop to sleep. Darkness is the best cover for traveling." He recited the words like they were common knowledge. Rue realized that he had been taught that, back in District Two. One of their many differences. Rue was never taught for the Games. She only knew about plants from her job.

The two allies walked so long Rue's knees felt like rubber. She wasn't used to this pace or distance of walking. "Cato?" Rue asked. She hated how weak she sounded. "I need to stop for the night." Cato, who was around a yard ahead of her, turned around, about to tell her she would die if she did. He saw how tired she looked and his face softened slightly.

"We'll stop here," he relented. Rue looked around for a suitable tree and scampered up it. Cato looked at her with wonder. "You're really good at that." His lips curved upward. A smile? It looked so wrong on Cato's face. He sat down at the base of the tree and pulled out his sword. His face was serious again as he kept watch.

Rue couldn't help but call down to him, "You know, if you're stopping to sleep, you're going to get killed."

Cato looked up at her and smiled again.

* * *

When Rue woke the next morning, it had stopped raining. She sat up cautiously, balancing on the tree limb. She heard a crunching sound below her and saw Cato, sitting on the ground, eating a crisp red apple.

He didn't notice she was awake until she was on the ground- she had practice in being silent. He held up the half-eaten apple. "Sponsor gifts." He pointed at a small basket next to him. "Here, I saved some for you." Rue's head spun. Did Careers always get sponsored so often? Rue hadn't gotten one gift when she was on her own.

Rue grabbed an apple, trying to control her thoughts. She ate the apple hungrily. It was from District Eleven, she realized by the taste. She ate it happily. It tasted of home and love and joy. She threw the core to the side when she was done.

"Oh yeah," Cato said. "There was a note on it too. He pointed to a little slip of paper. It bore only two words: For Rue. Rue's eyes widened. So the gift was hers? Why were they choosing now, of all times, to sponsor her?

Cato shifted uncomfortably. "I hope you don't mind I ate a few," he said, "but all my supplies got blown up, and I haven't eaten in a while."

"Blown up?" Rue asked, biting into another apple. "How?"

"Oh, the guy from Three rewired the pedestal bombs, and put them around our supplies. That Fire Girl threw a rock at them or something, and everything got destroyed." Cato looked wistfully at the direction of the Cornucopia.

"Did you have anything to eat at all since then?" asked Rue incredulously.

"I had a few blueberries," Cato said. "I don't know that much about plants. I'm guessing you do? You didn't get a lot from the Cornucopia."

"We learn about plants in Eleven," said Rue. "Since we're around them so much." Cato nodded and got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. "Where are we going, Cato?" Rue asked. She was confused. Why did they have to constantly keep moving? She'd had the same shelter for three nights.

"Away from here," Cato said. "I just like to keep moving. I always feel like... I don't know, like I'm being followed-" he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to demonstrate this- "and if I stop, someone's going to catch up with me." Rue understood what he meant. He was restless, and liked to always be going somewhere, even if he didn't know where to go.

Still, Rue was tired. "Can we just stay here an hour or so longer?" she asked him. "Please?" She widened her overlarge golden brown eyes at her ally. She had always given her mother and father that look if she wanted something. To her surprise, Cato started laughing.

"Fine, Rue," he said, still laughing. Rue didn't know what he found so funny, but since it got her an extra hour without walking at top speed, it was okay with her.

She spied a long branch that had fallen from a tree and picked it up. She felt a rush of homesickness. Trying to ward it off, she held the branch in front of her and spun around.

"What're you doing?" asked Cato, watching her twirling and spinning the stick around in her small hands.

"It's a dance we do back in my District," she said, still twirling the stick. Occasionally, she tossed it over her shoulder, spun, and caught it. Her face was lit up. For the first time since entering the arena, she felt like she was at home. If she closed her eyes, she could almost picture her and her friends twirling around after harvest season...

She heard the sound of metal scraping against metal and saw Cato sheathing his sword and holding it out in front of him. Eyeing Rue, he whipped the sword through the air, spun around, caught it in his nimble fingers.

Rue's face broke into a smile at the sight of Cato, her tough, coldhearted ally, dancing on the ground of the arena.

In the Capitol, people were scratching their heads in amazement and confusion. Why were those two totally different tributes dancing together? Well, not really together- they were doing their own separate dances. But they moved swiftly around each other, and they were laughing like two best friends. They should be worst enemies? Why hadn't Cato killed her? Why wasn't Rue running off screaming?

The answer to that question was very apparent to them when Cato dropped his sword and pulled Rue into an embrace, which she returned.

Maybe it was him, maybe it was her... but to both of them, everything felt right.


End file.
